The Internet and the Public Sphere, Pt. 1 ( A )

Internet and the Public Sphere, pt. 2 ( A )

Where ordinary people discuss acting as citizens is called by Habermas "the public sphere". An invisible sphere where citizens deal with matters of general interest freely. Mass Media are the media of the public sphere. "public opinion": organized state authority that the public exercises. For the author television has reduced much public discourse so publicness of democracy has been eroded. The power of online discourse is the ability for people to meet, inform, discuss and organize around specific issues but not all the online discourse is useful. It is necessary an invisible social infraestructure experienced people to model the behaviour in order to maintain civility.

As examples of the public sphere we can pay attention to Kim Alexander and her organization, she uses e-mail for her campaign or Steven Clift and colleagues at the Minnesota E-Democracy project make.

Comment

From my point of view, it is true that the internet helps people to meet and to communicate with others. I agree with the author on that not all the online discourse is useful. If we have a look on some chats, we will see that it is difficult to begin a real conversation with someone and in the majority of cases it is only a way of entertainment, a conversation with any important information. But if somebody, experienced is giving us the key to make a good use of that new way of communication. it is a really good technical medium for communication. A great amount of information is in our hands and we could participate on really interesting conversations about matters of general interests. But, if it is necessary somebody who help us to make useful discourse and Habermas say that "public sphere is where people speak freely about that things mentioned above. Is that a way for public sphere? And... if people is more and more influenced by (basically) television and this is giving as a global sight... may be what we are thinking is guided by others.

Technology, Community, Humanity and the Net

Comment

From my point of view we are in a world where new things and inventions are in our lives, in very few years it appears the washmachine, the computers and many other important things that are very useful. As many other inventions, the internet has interesting and useful aspects and other that are useless. It depends on the user. As Howard Rheingold says new technologies are "double-edged"